ANGST SHORT 2

So happy to finally get this animation done: Angst Shorts 2. It's the second of what I hope to be a handful of animations that match some silly comics I have been working on (here's this one)(I printed out a bunch for a zine swap - here's a photo from Instagram of that + a ridiculous batch of another thing + a sad strawberry sitting in a backwashed margarita).

After finishing my undergrad and taking some time to reflect on just how much time it took me to make a thesis animation (over a year), something seemed to stand out. So many ideas for animations have never had the chance to get realized. My friends from other majors had a lot of different pieces to show after 4 years, and in comparison, I didn't feel that animation students had a lot of material. The argument usually boils down to the process - the general rule seems to be: "animations take forever!" and "wow, you must have no social life."

When thinking "animation" it might be typical to instantly think Disney features, television shows that owned our childhood attention spans, etc. - pieces of art that have so many hands in them, so many hours, skills, time (and money) thrown into the mix. Animation exists as a pretty weird form of art.

Angst Shorts are just glorified sketchbook ideas/an effort to keep practicing storytelling and animating without the weight of the ideal "short film". I don't really want to spend my whole animation career strictly slaving over a few ideas - I am just trying to have fun. In the summer, I made storyboard thumbnails (this is the second out of three) and scanned those into the computer. I traced the keys and tried to hold back on animating much beyond those poses. Took one night to slop together some backgrounds in Photoshop. Had my friends throw some voices into a microphone. Voila - after spending an afternoon clicking through an audio library - I finished an impromptu soundtrack (some are mega buried/there's definitely a woman saying "please leave a message" at the first close-up of the cat's face)(I also did a lot of extra screamy screeches into the mic for her at the end).

The process took longer than I anticipated. The goal is to get much faster at these - to have more focus on what makes the story clearest in the least amount of time. I really just want to break down the limiting idea I have in my head that animations are always daunting, time-sucking forms of art. The best part of doing these is that when I go to start my more serious short films (I started one as soon as I finished this), the process seems so much less overwhelming and more manageable.

ANGST SHORT 1

This was posted a week ago up on Rad Fortress - check it if you haven't wrecked it.

Voices by Pat and Karl - and music by Karl, too!

Been super busy gearing up for a trip to visit friends/catch Animation Breakdown Fest next week -

Matt, Pat, Dan and I had the chance some titles (I animated the first 24 frames of the title for the Free-for-All and Roundup). We also have some work in the show, including a film from Pat and Ian.

~*~*~*~*~  cool Animation Breakdown trailer ~*~*~*~*~

~**~**~**~ really cool Animation Breakdown Roundup 2 trailer ~**~**~**~

More updates to come but in the meantime, here are some silly progress updates of the above short before I ended up finishing it. Angst Short #2 is on it's way; I timed out thumbnails today in Flash.

 

Also, I just found out about Movie Buddies last week... take a listen if you haven't already.

ANGST SHORTS TRAILER

In the midst of trying to finish an animation as fast as possible,
I bring you: a trailer for an animation that'll be here in less than a month:



Thanks Karl (http://koolkarl.com/) for the music (inspired by the best game of my childhood).
More TBA ;p

Hardcow - DONE!

It's finally here! It's been a long time coming (the first post about it was September of last year), but this is finally done. Summer has been good to this project (I only had this much done at the end of the semester) - it started out as a few smacked together scenes of cows dancing.

I was able to manipulate a handful of scenes in post-production/After Effects in order to make a better end result (the effect during the dance sequences, the way the cow and the pig are watching the rooster eat the boombox, etc). I could extend frames I needed more time with (for example, the first two frames of the pig were both one 1's, then pulled apart and drawn out into a longer jitter, etc). I used a bunch of fun sounds I found on freesound.org.

The idea behind this short, as mentioned at the end, to "SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HARDCOW". Listening to a handful of local bands and making it a point to go and see a handful of local shows was one of the most memorable things from my teenage years. I was watching people in my generation essentially express themselves and putting all the time and money they could into it, regardless of their background. I wanted to make this short as a way to remind us all to embrace what type of art is happening in our backyard (or in this case, our barnyard) - everyone has to start somewhere.

The best thing about being even a small part of the local music scene's community was that you got to watch musicians grow. While I was working on this short, a band I had literally watched play in a BARN (how fitting) back when I was a sophomore in high school got signed and went out on a tour. Another crazy thing happened while working on this short: I met a guy at a mutual friend's house who, turns out, had also been a part of the local music scene for a handful of years. I was in need of finding music for my cow to dance to, and the band he was working with had the perfect song. This summer that band landed a spot to play on the Ernie Ball stage at Cleveland's Warped Tour. The way I grew up watching bands play simply because they loved it translated straight to how I want to do my own art for the same exact reason.

What's next? Revisiting my senior thesis plans.

That being said, I hope to make more cows dance in the future.

Hardcow Update

The HARDCOW animation is nearly there. All cleanup, colors, and backgrounds have been implemented - what's left is to export all the scenes, slap them together, get some credits rolling, and.. well, I have to do a small jitter of some other farm animals awkwardly watching the cow dance. Here's some drawings I did of cats and dogs (it looks looks like I really just wanted to draw cats and dogs, I know, but forgive me).

My goal was to finish this by the end of the month - and here we are. I am cutting it close, but the plan is to make the big post August 1st if not July 31st. Also, another blog update coming soon - I have been busy making a gig poster that involves a fat Batman.

Hardcow: More Cleanup

BEWARE OF THE SPOILERS! This is the end scene! Hah.

Here's a bit of cleaned-up animation I have been working on for a short that should be completed before July ends. I am very close to being done! I just have to import corrected backgrounds and finish roughing and cleaning about 3 seconds of the scene right before this one.

Stay tuned! I'll keep you posted... ahh, that's a good blog pun.

Hardcow: Rough Animation + Background Dev

Here's some roughed-out animation I have been working on these past few weeks. These are the last scenes I need to finish cleaning up - then I am going to add the background elements and work on any extra animation from there.



Speaking of backgrounds, here are the backgrounds I currently have. I laid out the shapes in Illustrator, and now it's time to pull the layers into Photoshop to make them a little... prettier and grittier.

Sketch ATTACK! #8 - Space Puppy Returns... Again

Here's the last batch of sketches I have compiled.... for now! More Space Puppy. There's some drawings of storyboard thumbnails in here: I was working on making sure each shot made sense as far as flow and leading the eye from shot to shot. I plan on revamping my initial storyboards as well as the animatic before I dive in. 

Sketch ATTACK! #7 - Space Puppy Returns

More sketches! Here's some sketches for my senior thesis.
Tons of puppies, kitties, and aliens. More tomorrow!

Sketch ATTACK! #5

More sketches from this summer!
Next two sketch posts will be more about Hardcow and Space Puppy characters.

Sketch ATTACK! #4

Here's more sketches - this bunch is the start of the sketchbook I started this summer.
Mostly friends, a few sketches from the Posemaniac's app.

Sketch ATTACK! #3

Sketches from last semester and the beginning of the summer - life drawings, random drawings, and drawings from the http://www.posemaniacs.com/randompose app for iPhone!

Sketch ATTACK! #2

Here's the 2nd of 3 sketches from the second half of last semester and the beginning of this summer. Once school let out, I downloaded a free figure-drawing tool app (http://www.posemaniacs.com/randompose) and have been using it often. I recommend it to anyone who wants to do some figure drawing whenever they have a quick minute!